Chapter 12

CHAP. XII.

1. The sovereignty of God is wonderful in the various tempers of renewed ones. 2. In various influences. 3. In the desertions of the saints under the Old and under the New Testament. 4. In variety of desertions of elect and reprobate, and God's various dispensations to them. 5. Q. What we may do to wrestle out from under desertions? 6. Variety of temptations. 7. Rules for our behavior under them, in order to influences.

The sovereignty of God is much to be observed, in the Lord's manner of dispensing of grace; James and John are called being at their nets, and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] immediately they leave their father and follow him (Matthew 4:21, 22). Matthew hears but one word, follow me (Matthew 9:9), and he follows Christ. A gentle throw of the key opens Lydia's heart: the hearers of Peter, who had crucified the Lord of glory, are more violently rent and torn, as if the sharpest points, or the stings of many envenomed dragons and scorpions, had been at once fastened in their hearts (Acts 2:37). The way of Saul's coming with trembling and astonishment, and blindness, and fasting, and praying three days, and the jailor's down casting may witness, that the lock being more rusted and the iron blunted (Acts 9:6, 7, &c.), more strength is required for the opening of the door, than the Lord otherwise employed; as some devils are cast out with a word, and go out with some sort of humble prayers not to be tormented before the time (Matthew 8), others throw the possessed in the midst, and almost kill the child, so as beholders say, he is dead (Mark 9), there is a certain kind, which is not cast out but by fasting and praying. So some are filled with the holy Ghost from the womb; and hardly can John Baptist give an account of his conversion, as to the degrees of pangs of the new birth, the way and manner, the place, the mathematical hour, of the holy Ghost's sliding in, on the heart. Nor must we think none are in John Baptist's case; for beside that God employs some to, and for rare advantages, and gaining of souls to the kingdom of Christ, shall there be nothing of the holy Ghost in multitudes of infants in covenant with God, of which many die, as ripe, as if they were a hundred years old? Only beware we take not a sweet tractable nature, to be the very holy Ghost, and a work of infant conversion, such as was in John Baptist: and let not others cast themselves away, as not belonging to Christ, who yet are his, because they know not such pangs and throwings of the new birth, as Saul, the jailor, the converts who killed Christ (Acts 2), where the skin of the boil is doubly thick, some more violence is required, and a sharper lance is made use of, to open the wound.

2. Some require milder influences as being led all their time, with sweetness of peace. The arches grieved Joseph sore, no man more moved from vessel to vessel than he, and meek Moses was much tossed; and both, for anything we read, far from cursing the day wherein they were born. There is a temper of solid walkers by faith, enjoying much peace, yet not acquainted with great spring tides, nor with extreme low ebbs, of the outlettings of the holy Ghost. I speak not of Moses as a prophet, who saw God, and whom the Lord knew face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10).

3. Some are led through fewer slips and falls, as John the disciple who leaned on Jesus' bosom; excepting his fall of angel worship, and some other few, he seems not to be so high bended as Peter, who in Satan's place dissuaded Christ from the working of our redemption, denied the Lord with cursing, did foully Judaize (Galatians 2).

4. And it were hard to make all the prophets of Jonah's mould, whose fear to preach to great Nineveh was extreme, and yet his courage of faith, and patience to be cast in the sea with his own advice and consent, was as great, and his cruel selfishness to desire that all Nineveh old and young, should be destroyed, rather than his prophetical honor should be darkened in the least, shows what a piece of man he was, and his justifying his anger against God, for a blast of wind on his head, and the withering of a poor herb, a gourd, do all hold forth that God leads some, in a way of influences beside the rest. O how is our meek Lord troubled, and (to speak so) cumbered to bear all our manners, sinful tempers, and humors.

5. Nor are all saints of the altitude of Elias his zeal; a man much and wholly for God, and fervent in prayer, yet he seems to challenge more zeal to himself for the slain prophets, digged down altars, broken covenant, than was in the holy Lord himself; and so prays that God would take away his life, as if he were the last man of the true church of God living on earth; and yet we read in all his sufferings, no apprehension of the anger and indignation of God, such as was in others.

6. None are so trailed through hell and fiery indignation, as Job, David, Jeremiah, Heman; there appear in them some habitual mistakes of the love of God, or rather (because sinful acquired habits, are scarcely to be found in the renewed) more fixed inclinations, to apprehend wrathfulness, and law dispensation in God, and few are led this way; and the outlettings of influences of grace must be various here.

7. Neither should it be strange, if we might place Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others in a seventh class, who had their own complainings; one saying, my leanness, my leanness; another fasting and walking in sackcloth for the sanctuary's desolation, and yet most submissive to the holy dispensations of God. In all which, another man's compass is not our rule of sailing, nor is the Lord's various dispensation to his children, which is ordered by his decree and will of pleasure, not by his commanding and approving will, the Scripture rule that we are to follow, in looking after influences. Every one would submit to be ordered of God; he has almost a various way of leading his own: if the same complete ransom, the same promises, the same guide and steersman to Heaven be mine, and the same hope of glory; yet the manifestations of God, the love visits, the influences of grace are hardly the same. It is then a faulty ground of some, never one was like me, none of my condition in the world, since the creation. Every one thinks their own hell on earth, the only hell. 2. Nor should Christians be unwilling to know the spiritual condition one of another; you may fall upon some, in your very course and kind. It is like David (Psalm 71:7), Heman (Psalm 88:15), the suffering Church (Lamentations 1:12; Psalm 102:6, 7), Elias (1 Kings 19:10), Isaiah and Christ, and the children of Christ, who were wonders and signs (Isaiah 8:18; Hebrews 2:13), who were there alone as world's wonders, might judge themselves like no other (though the man Christ could not mistake his own spiritual estate) as to their case spiritual, and God's dispensation towards them.

8. The sovereignty of God's dealing with consciences in the Old and in the New Testament is to be observed. It is not, 1. to be denied, but the desertions under the Law in some respect, were more fiery and legal; the typical dimness and darkness made them to see less love, and more Law, and less of Christ the seat of mercy, and more of the curse and of wrath, as the night darkness renders spirits and dreadful things more terrible. 2. It was the purpose of God to awe generally that people more with law-fear, and bondage, than his people under the New Testament. But it is a wicked doctrine of some Anabaptists, and others, that all desertions are, under the New Testament cried down and gone; and it is our legal mistake, say they, that works trouble of conscience, under the New Testament, and an exercise of such as are under the Covenant of Works; though it may be said law-sorrow pursued these of the Old Testament; but the saints now are less passive and more active, in pursuing sorrow according to God, yet in another respect, because of greatness of light, and Gospel experiences, and a higher measure of illuminations, and spiritual presence in more abundance is promised and prophesied. As, that all shall be taught of God; the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord; the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun as the light of seven days (Jeremiah 31:31, 32, 33; Isaiah 54:11, 12, 13; Isaiah 11:6, 9; Ezekiel 36:26, 27; Isaiah 44:1, 2, 3, 4; Joel 2:28; Zechariah 12:10) under the New Testament; therefore the desertion is the sadder. Thirst near to the fountain is more intolerable; so we read not in the New Testament of one like to Job (chapters 3, 6, 16, 19), nor of such as David (Psalm 6; Psalm 38), nor of Heman (Psalm 88), nor of the Church (Psalm 77; Psalm 102). Yet is there nothing harder than that of Paul (2 Corinthians 1); we cannot say, whether it was his persecution at Ephesus, or some great sickness; yet it is a most sad trial, verses 8, 9: 1. we was pressed, out of measure; 2. above strength; 3. in so much that we despaired, even of life; 4. but we had the sentence of death in ourselves. And whatever be the kind; for even Christ had so much the more sorrow, at the withdrawing influences of the comforts that immediately flowed from the Godhead personally united, and this was Christ's hell in part; therefore we are to look upon desertions in the Song of Solomon as prophetical, and relating to the desertions in the New Testament, in the which the rise of the grief is not so much from the apprehension of sin legally tormenting, as from the sense of the want of the sweet comforting presence of God, and of the well-beloved Christ. Yet there is as much in that of pain, as in any we read (Canticles 5:6): "I rose up to open to my beloved, my beloved had withdrawn himself, and had passed away; my soul went forth, because of his speech." Ainsworth: My soul was gone, and departed, that is, failed, fainted, I was even a dead woman through fear and grief; for death is the departing of the soul from the body (Genesis 33:18). This though an evangelical desertion, is as much as David says, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer, and as the waves of the Lord's wrath coming over Heman; yes, and it is more painful to be thrust out of Heaven, and to be deprived of an high measure of enjoyed and felt love, and is a sadder torment than all the law-burnings, though they have in David and others some such love-sickness, which was ordinary to the Old Testament dispensation. And these and the like the soul is more able to bear: that the habit and stock is rich, as Christ, from the personally indwelling Godhead, was strong in his desertions peculiar to him; and the richer the habit of grace be, the more able is the soul to stand out: the strong ship is more able to endure the storm, than the crazy and rotten vessel; a giant is fitter for a battle with a giant, than a child is.

9. Some are kept in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on the Lord, and being justified by faith have peace with God (Isaiah 26:2; Romans 5:1). There are two sorts of dispensations, one fundamental, another not fundamental; the former is the Lord's carrying on his begun work, which is to will and do to the end in his ordinary course; the dispensation which is not fundamental, respects the Lord's way of doing, here and now, in such circumstances, and the degrees of grace given or infused, which do not vary the species and nature of the work. We read not of Daniel's cursing the day he was born in, as Jeremy and Job do; nor is there any shadow of it in Joseph; yet nothing hinders but Job and Jeremy may and did at other times, enjoy sweet presence, and nearness to God.

But 1. We would not take extraordinary feasts to be daily food; nor should we much wonder when a change cometh: but how do we chide, quarrel, complain, because it is not always so? Nor 2. Should we be rough, but compassionate to sick ones: it is the Lord's way that all in the house should not be sick at once; but some are sick and some whole to wait on the sick, and all to bear one another's burthens; all the diseases of the house are not the same in kind and degree.

2. Some do all their life dwell in the borders of hell, and never have fair sailing, nor fulness of assurance, until they be upon the shore; such have only star-light, and are called to pure living by faith (Isaiah 50:10).

3. Some, once in all their life have one only remarkable night of wrestling with God, and prevail, as Jacob did; and some love so their prison that they take a sentence, à non judice, à non habente potestatem: the Law severed from Christ, is no judge at all to believers; the Law speaks to its own that are under the Law (Romans 3:19); the jailer can command none but his own prisoners.

4. Some are frequently taken into the house of wine, and to the King's chamber. And what changes there be, Cant. 2. cap. 3. c. 4, 5, 9. 1. v. 6. may be seen it is clear, and he that runs may read; felt love is not heritage to any. There is a huge difference between Cant. 2:6. His left hand is under mine head, and his right hand does embrace me; and that, I sought him, but I found him not, chap. 3. And that is a joyful feast, Cant. 5:1. I am come to my garden, my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrhe with my spice: eat O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved! And that again is a sad song, ver. 6. My beloved had withdrawn himself; I sought him, but I found him not; I called him, but he answered me not.

5. Some are all their life creeping children, yet saved: a sincere affection in Nicodemus consists with much ignorance, yet is not the faith rotten.

6. It belongs to sovereignty that the little vessels of small quantity hang upon Christ, as well as the great (Isaiah 22:24), and that the lambs, as well as the stronger of the flock, are cared for by him (Isaiah 40:11), and that the bruised reeds have their dependence on him.

7. To this head of sovereignty belong the various kinds of desertions; as 1. None are so deserted as the fallen angels; they have done for ever and ever with all influences of grace, and are eternally outlaws from the court of the King, who is head of principalities and powers (Jude ver. 6), reserved [〈in non-Latin alphabet〉] in everlasting chains, &c. (2 Peter 2:4). O but the chains of devils are fiery and hellish.

2. Next to them are reprobate men, who cast off Christ, and turn into Satan's camp. No saving influences are due to such as are reprobate to good works. Ah, beware of habitual hating of Christ, and his house, dependents and seed: yet are there here degrees; for none are in that measure deserted or blasphemers of the Holy Ghost.

3. Christ's desertion was extremely penal and brought out tears and strong cries, mixed with a curse; and only influences were suspended as touching vision and enjoyment or fruition, and the actual comforts of God; the crown in a manner was laid aside out of the eye and sight of the man Christ, yet wanted he never influences. 1. For acts of love; Father remove. 2. For acts of faith; O my Father remove. 3. For acts of praying more earnestly (Luke 23:44), O my Father remove this cup. 4. For acts of witnessing a good confession before Pontius Pilate. 5. For acts of preaching the confessing man to Paradise with him; none are eternally and cursedly deserted who can pray and hope, and believe in the furnace as Christ.

4. The redeemed of God are not all one and the same way deserted. 1. Some are extremely at under as Job, who apprehended that God did pursue him as an enemy (Job 13:20), though Job and every believer be the friend of God (James 2:23). 2. The spouse's desertions are less, being conveyed with love-sickness; Magdalen has no wakenings of conscience for sin, nor any positive agony or law-challenges, but only love desertion, she says with tears; They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. 3. Some are mere desertions as to the act of sin. God is angry at David, when God withdraws, so as he numbers the people, and commits adultery and murder: and Christ is angry at Peter's pride when he suffers him to deny his Master; but neither David and Peter feels any anger from the Lord in such withdrawings of gracious influences; but it is so much the worse, the man is wounded in his sleep, and many months and days after the wounds bleed. O what trembling at holy sovereignty, why deadness to duties should come on David, not on Asa. On David at this time, not at another time: hence a case may be, whether absence of the Lord in his influences may be mere and only love sickness for him whom the soul loves, or also absence with conscience of sin?

Ans. The predominant may be sickness only for the want of Christ; as in the spouse (Cant. 2) and in Magdalen (John 20). I say the predominant, because we cannot say, that God withdraws in his outlettings of grace, but there is guiltiness in the spouse so made sick because of his absence, and with Magdalen's sickness for Christ there appeareth a doting too much on the man Christ (John 20:13), I know not where they have laid him. Ver. 15. I will take him away. Ver. 17. Touch me not. When we are too bent upon Christ as a comforter, not as Christ, it is just with God we be pained and sick with the want of him; and that we seek him and find him not, so spiritual ought we to be under the pain of absence.

2. But it is clear in the man Christ, there is paining, withdrawing, and forsaking on the Lord's part; Why have you forsaken me? And neither sin nor conscience of sin, nor any hazard of love-sickness after God's near embracings, but upon the due account; for Christ could not idolize God as comforting.

Q. What may we do to wrestle out from under desertions? Ans. Distinguish these three.

1. Gracious withdrawing from where cometh sin and unbelief.

2. The frowning of God, and hiding of his face.

3. The penal sorrow and smarting under his absence.

As to the First; Its lawful to plead and pray against withdrawings as they necessarily bring in sin; the more gracious the temper is, we shall pray more earnestly against the least sin then against the most fiery hell.

As to the Second which is the frowning of God; 1. The nature of a child says, its lawful to weep when the Father is angry. 2. Inherent grace and the sparkles of the image of God cannot endure well that eternal favor should be hid. 3. The nature of faith and of love to God will say, that the man should be saddened when the love of God is either hid or provoked. 4. The practice of the Saints says so much (Job 13:24). Therefore hidest you your face? Psalm 13:1. How long will you hide your face from me? 5. His shining is desirable; O send day light. Psalm 31:16. Make your face to shine upon your servant. Psalm 80:3, 7, 19. 6. Its lawful to deprecate the anger of God. Psalm 79:5. How long Lord, will you be angry, for ever? And especially a gracious heart is saddened most at the outgoings of wrath against prayer (Psalm 80:4), in which the Mediator, and the precious name of God, in a manner, seem to suffer (Psalm 42:3, 10; Psalm 83:1, 2, 3; Isaiah 52:5; Exodus 32:11, 12; Joshua 7, 8, 9). 7. Hardly can a natural spirit lay to heart, yes or know that God is angry, as a child of God can do; as its all one to a man in a dark pit under the earth whether it be day-light or mid-night; the one does not comfort him, nor the other sadden him.

As to the Third; Its a great deceit that we more penally smart at the absence of the Paradise of comforting presence, then at the want of real communion with God; this should calm the heart notwithstanding the pain of the absence of God as a comforter, that we believe his unfelt love and care, as a God in Covenant. Micah 7:7. I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation, my God shall hear me. Verse 8. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me.

2. The Lord, as is elsewhere said, in a course of sovereignty deserting, will not come until his own time come; as some fevers must have their own course of natural motion, so that the man shall sweat out of the tertian ague by length of time: if you should use all the medicine of the Earth, yet this forbids not art and industry altogether, to help nature. So Christ under the stroke of sovereign justice prays and was heard in that which he feared (Hebrews 5:7), believed, hoped, and so overcame (Revelation 3:21).

And because sovereignty has a special hand in temptations, we are to take heed to temptations to weaken us in duties; as Master, pity yourself. 2. Sometime Satan tempts to duties, to pray when we should hear. 3. Sometime to gross carnal sins, fall down and worship me; and sometimes to spiritual sins, If you be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. 4. Sometimes to duties in the excess; as for Timothy to drink water, the incestuous man to mourn until he be swallowed up of grief (2 Corinthians 2:5). Sometimes Satan tempts himself to go out that he may more tempt, and return with seven devils worse then himself. 6. Sometimes he tempts by a boisterous imperious usurpation. Job is mine, he serves God for hire. All hypocrites are Satan's (Job 1). 7. Sometime he tempts to lawful liberties, to eat, setting the law of nature in opposition to the divine positive law (Genesis 3). The tree is good for meat; then God and Nature ordained it for food. In all which, holy sovereignty gives influences natural to the tempter; nor will he have us to question his sovereignty. 2. Nor would he have us to make either his giving or his withdrawing of influences our rule. And 3. In all our actings he would have us to tremble; What if providence put a cross bias on the heart, what can influences not do to hasten a Judas to his place, though the holy Lord remains spotless and free? 4. There is much need of that, lead us not into temptation. 5. Had the gold will and reason, it owes thanks to the goldsmith, though he burn and melt it, because he removes the dross. Its true, the physician lames and wounds particular nature, when he opens a vein; but he saves the whole body thereby, and the sick person owes him thanks. Were there no more but these excellent influences that act in temptations, as to their precious fruits, to wit, the humbling of the tempted sinner, the discovery of latent corruption, of the wiles of Satan, the praise and glory of his grace who knows how to counter-work (in a manner) his own influences, and does invisibly uphold his own children, under these temptations; the Lord is here to be loved and adored, as wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.